Marketing Wisdom From the Mouth of a Babe

Submitted by Chris Eifert on Thu, 2012-03-22 00:00

Marketing Wisdom From the Mouth of a Babe

It is often said that children speak with great wisdom. And while my nine-year-old daughter is incredibly bright, I haven’t often thought of her as wise. She’s cute. She’s nine. But is she wise? Last week, I saw an article about her favorite pop star, Taylor Swift, doing something incredibly sweet for a cancer-fighting teenager (here’s the article — it’s nice). I thought it would be good for my daughter to know something more about her idol than the teenage romances that are typically weaved through her lyrics — so I sent her the article link in an email.

This weekend, when she finally got around to reading her old dad’s email (I think she filters me to a “read later” folder), she called me over to the computer. She had just pulled the article up. Without hesitation, she asked, “Dad, do I have to read this? Where is the video?” After telling her she’d have to invest a little effort into READING, I couldn’t help but note how she solidified in my mind what is sure to be a future short on text and heavy on digital images.

Consider the following:

Comscore reported that 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December 2011, at a whopping average total of 23.2 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience watched 43.5 billion videos.

YouTube reported in January that daily video views topped four billion, an increase of more than 30 percent over the last eight months.

And marketers are responding. This March, eMarketer reported 49 percent of advertisers will increase their spending on videos, while only 2 percent said spending would decrease in this area.

And if you’re thinking video isn’t as relevant in the B2B marketing space — think again. Our own TriComB2B research on the considered purchase process confirmed that 51 percent of B2B buyers have used online video to gather information as part of the buying process.

So, if you’re going into the copywriting field, be prepared to write video scripts, not brochures. Getting ready to build a website? Find a home for some video, especially if your audience consists at least partially of nine-year-olds.